I’m sitting on the deck, sipping a fresh-brewed cup of early coffee. It’s Easter, and the air is clear and bright and alive, offering the promise of another glorious Memphis spring day. The earth has resurrected itself and donned its finest vestments: Azaleas, dogwoods, irises, shamrocks, lantana — all manner of flowers large and small are in full bloom, turning the city, and my own backyard, into a celebration of color.
There is a mixed chorus of birdsong coming from the trees above. I listen for awhile and recognize the chirpy stylings of our resident Carolina wrens, cardinals, and mockingbirds, but there’s one persistent call I should know and can’t place. After a check of my Merlin Bird ID app, the mystery is soon revealed. It’s the cheery morning song of a — wait for it — Turdus migratorius, probably the commonest bird of all in these parts, better known as the American robin. Merlin says it’s a “fairly large songbird with round body parts. … Gray above, with warm orange underparts.”
Turdus migratorius? Round body parts? Warm orange underparts? C’mon. How can it be that even Latin bird names are conspiring to divert my brain on this lovely morning and send my thoughts to the unlovely news all too easily located elsewhere on my phone?
There’s no escaping it. Every day brings a new horror as President Turdus deconstructs our government and tightens his control over We the People. He’s intentionally crippling the pillars of our republic, cutting funding for Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the IRS, the Department of Energy, our national parks, NPR, Voice of America, the NOAA, the FDIC, Veterans Affairs, the National Science Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just last week, he tossed FEMA onto the bonfire of his vanities. Federal disaster relief is now going to be defunded. Cool.
And it’s not just the government. Trump’s putting the squeeze on law firms, universities, the media, nonprofits, students, and immigrants of every color except white, should they dare to stand up to the mighty American Robbin’. And it gets worse.
As I write this, the president has ignored at least one Supreme Court ruling for more than a week, with more SCOTUS cases to come. A genuine constitutional crisis is brewing, one which stems from the fact that the chief executive of the United States has literally seized power from the other two branches of government before our very eyes — in less than 100 days.
To control the judiciary, Trump began by ignoring the long-standing tradition of appointing an independent attorney general in favor of his pal Pam Bondi, the same woman who engineered a sweetheart “home confinement” deal for known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s attorney general. She’s also the woman who declined to prosecute Trump for his Trump University scam after receiving a $25,000 campaign donation from Trump’s “foundation.”
Toss in six conservative Supreme Court justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump, and the odds of the Justice Department stopping Orange Underparts are slim. Plus, they have no enforcement powers except for the U.S. Marshals, which are controlled by Bondi.
And when it comes to the GOP-controlled Congress, it appears Trump has only to breathe the threat of primarying a Republican politician with Elon Musk’s billions and they line up like good little soldiers and head over to Fox News to spew the latest White House drivel.
And lest we forget, there are the incredibly foolish and soon-to-be-costly tariffs and the impetuous destruction of relationships with long-standing allies. Worst of all is the realization that we live in a time in the United States of America where masked, non-uniformed agents are literally abducting people — throwing them into vehicles, taking them from their families and friends, and sending them to prisons here and abroad. No attorneys, no judges, no juries, no court appearances, no sentences. Welcome to the new USA.
Back in Memphis, Turdus migratorius is still singing sweetly above me as I scroll my phone and see that on the Fox News app, the top story on this beautiful Easter Sunday is: “Trump shreds Biden, ‘Radical Left Lunatics’ in Easter message.” Just as Jesus would have done, no doubt. Lord, help us.
